As soon as I finished our original interview, I knew I had to have Soleio on as the first repeat guest. He led early design efforts at Facebook and Dropbox. Now he invests in design-driven startups like Figma, Framer, Vercel, etc.

So this week’s episode is all about how designers and startups can succeed in a world where everything is changing. We go deep into:

Ideal traits for a founding designer
How startups can strategically attack incumbents
Why the future belongs to designers who can ship
The backstory behind Soleio’s investment in Perplexity
A potential future where one designer can service 5+ startups
What you can do to invest in your future founder journey today
How Soleio approaches the design tooling space as an investor
Why we won’t use smartphones the same way 5 years from now
a lot more

Soleio’s first episode
Meng To’s video editing product (episode coming soon)
Granola (Sam and Chris are the founders)
Interview with Perplexity’s head of design (Henry Modisett)
Pattern Breakers by Mike Maples, Jr

Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:32 Designers who can ship 11:18 Dealing with the velocity of tech as an investor 13:27 The importance of brand for startups 18:00 Why Soleio beleives we won't be using smartphones the same way in 5 years 34:23 Qualities that Soleio looks for in first-time founders 36:58 How to succeed as a founding designer 44:53 Founders living in the future 55:05 How to invest in your future founder journey today

Soleio - The rise of designers who ship

Episode description